Really bad album title here. The lack of a
second ʽoʼ in ʽtooʼ would never deter the skeptics from sneering «You don't say!»,
which they really do in their two-star and C+ reviews. But it's even worse if
you prefer not to notice the pun — because who of us would want a «normal» Ben
Folds? Any more «normal» and he'd be Vanessa Carlton. An immediate turn-off,
and a particularly ridi­culous one, considering that it is also deceptive: Way To Normal is not really any more or
less «normal» than any other Ben Folds record. In fact, considering its overall
lightweight nature and the abundance of openly clownish moments, it might even
be less normal than usual. Maybe he
should have come up with that title earlier — I think that Rockin' The Suburbs is more deser­ving of it than this particular
batch of tunes.

There is nothing surprising about the fact that
Way To Normal was greeted with
relative cold­ness, and the reasons behind this probably go deeper than a
simple «oh no, not another forty minutes of this guy bitching about his
problems» gut reaction. One of them is that thirty-five years earlier, a
bespectacled eccentric called Reginald Kenneth Dwight recorded ʽBennie And The
Jetsʼ, a stomping, fireworks-laden, piano-on-parade glam rocker that became one
of the most symbolic and unforgettable anthems of its era — a giddy celebration
of excess, decadence, and showbiz razzle-dazzle, spiced with self-irony that
you could savor or ignore at your whim. Now, thirty-five years later, Ben Folds, a successful, but
still somewhat aspiring singer-songwriter, opens his new album with an
intentional tribute to that particular song, subtitled ʽB B B Benny Hit His
Headʼ just so there would be no way
whatsoever you could leave that fact unnoticed — and the song is about... falling
on his head off the stage at the start of a Japanese show. "Oh oh oh,
they're watching me fall", goes the chorus. Does that make you happy or
what?

Oh, it's not a bad song at all — the chorus is suitably anthemic and catchy, and Ben
pounds the keys with no less physical energy than Elton. It's a funny parody,
except it came out about thirty years too late for us to properly get the joke,
and, worse than that, it is one more reminder — as if we really needed one! — of why Elton John is Elton John, and Ben
Folds, all pros and cons con­sidered, is still only Ben Folds. And I am not
even raising the issue of how convenient it is to get this sort of song under
the title ʽHiroshimaʼ, which would normally have us expect something completely
different. (Then again, it might be a politically incorrect plus rather than
minus — fuck atomic bombs, let's just sing about falling on our heads instead).

A very similar piano-punching pattern
constitutes the spine of the album's lead-off single and best-known track, ʽYou
Don't Know Meʼ, for which Ben enlists the help of a chamber string sec­tion and
Regina Spektor, who had only just graduated from Soviet kitsch to Begin To Hope, and whose whimsical
style was in perfect agreement with this song, written by Ben as a mutually ac­cusing
dialog between the bastard and one of his bitches (and yes, most of the imaginary or not so
imaginary protagonists on this album come across as certified bastards and
bitches). The percep­tive effect of ʽYou Don't Know Meʼ, however, is different
from ʽHiroshimaʼ — the whole song, both instrumentally and vocally, is built on
brief stop-and-start bits of melody, which gives it a robotic feel; Ben's and
Regina's vocal interaction on all the "you-don't-know-me"s, in
particular, sounds so intentionally rigid and mechanical as if it were
computer-generated. But both singers are so «wimpy» that, in the end, they
sound like baby robots having a baby battle of the wits, and while the effect
is genuinely hard to forget, you do feel like you're sitting in the middle of a
cute­sy cartoon while it's on.

«Fluffy» moments like these abound on the
record. ʽDr Yangʼ, ʽThe Frown Songʼ, ʽFree Coffeeʼ, and, of course, the
infamously titled ʽBitch Went Nutsʼ — all of them giddy, lightweight, ironic,
sometimes parodic pop-rockers; some of them are melodically impressive (ʽDr
Yangʼ is a head-spinning piece of piano-based rock'n'roll with one of Ben's
best piano tones ever captured on the instrumental solo part), but some do not
seem to be making much of a point, or, worse still, are making a debatable
point — the lyrics of ʽBitch Went Nutsʼ carry the «strained relationship» topic
a little too far, right into the sphere of personal meanness, and the breakneck
tempo of the piano melody does not allow Ben to redeem himself through
efficient composition.

All the more surprising is the fact that, sandwiched
in between these numerous samples of «storms in teacups», we do find some of
Ben's most soulful ballads in ages — ʽCologneʼ and ʽKylie From Connecticutʼ both
work on the most basic gut level, the former with its melancholic desperation (featuring
the loneliest way to say the words "my hotel room" since Ray Davies),
and the latter with its desperate melancholia, if you get the difference
between the two. Both are far more emotionally loaded than ʽBrickʼ, even if
their respective choruses are nowhere near that loud — apparently, as time (and
more divorces) go by, it becomes easier for Folds to wallow in his misery and
convert the results to heart-tugging vocal lines.

Overall, this is frankly a mess — but then
again, so was a heavy chunk of, say, Paul McCartney's solo catalog (an analogy
that probably came to my mind because both artists like to write silly songs
about dogs — check ʽ3 Legsʼ against ʽErrant Dogʼ!). So, for consistency's sake,
I couldn't dare condemn Way To Normal
based on any «ideological» grounds, if the individual songs range from
cutesy-funny to subtly-heart-wrenching. Diverse, creative, funny, and, as
usual, ho­nestly fulfilling Ben Folds' destiny — converting his life experience
into friendly musical anec­dotes. If, this time around, the results seem «fluffy»,
I guess it also merely reflects a particular piece of life experience. No
problems with a thumbs
up here.

On a side note, one year later Ben actually re-released
the album as Stems And Seeds,
changing the running order, adding some extra overdubs (notably additional
orchestrated parts for ʽCo­logneʼ), and, most importantly, remixing all the
tracks with less compression — acting on fan complaints about the poor sound
quality of Way To Nor­mal, as he explained
before other fans who complained
about the rip-off effect. I have heard both versions, and testify that Stems does sound a wee bit fresher and «ringier»,
so certified audiophiles might want to go along with the new ver­sion; but on
the other hand, it is not as if they were so significantly different that you
could get bored with the old one and then get redeemed with the new one. However,
it is worth noting that, in the authentic tradition of the «nutty artist», the actual
song ʽWay To Normalʼ only makes its appearance on Stems And Seeds, but not on Way
To Normal itself. Fortunately for us all, it's not a particularly good
song.

1 comment:

I like some Ben Folds, but he can only dream of writing a song half as catchy as "Three Legs." The problem with Ben Folds' messy albums, in my opinion, is that they're not often enough messy in an interesting way.